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“Ma’am, you okay?”
I jumped, startled, and looked into a young man’s eyes who barely looked old enough to shave.
“I’m good,” I breathed, forcing a smile. “Thank you. I—tripped.”
He nodded, clearly unfazed by a woman tripping over a flat gravel lot, and moved on.
I made it to the door and shook it off as I made my way inside, calling back the confidence of just seconds before. I could do this. I could hold my head high and—
“Look who it is,” I heard whispered somewhere to my right.
I looked that way but the place was packed, and the music was grinding, vibrating the floor.
“Can you believe she just gets away...”
“...that family...”
“I heard that she...”
Yeah, I heard it, too. Through the music and the laughter and the chit chat, I heard it.
I lifted my chin and straightened my spine, walking that floor like I fucking owned it. Praying the whole time that I’d see someone I knew in the next thirty seconds.
“Yep, twenty-five more seconds,” I said under my breath. I smiled at a waiter and pointed at a beer bottle. He nodded. “After that, I’m out of here.”
Five more seconds went by as I strolled by the bar toward the pool tables, looking for the familiar faces of the shop. Feeling the eyes on me. Ten. Fifteen. The waiter came back with my beer and I traded cash for it, ready to knock it back and walk out. Fuck this. Fuck Adam. Fuck all of—
“Faith!”
“Thank you, Jesus,” I muttered as Tobias waved at me from the other wall.
I didn’t know quite who to thank when my eyes then landed on Adam, who looked up from lining up a shot at the sound of my name. Because no one had ever looked at me like that. In the history of ever.
Not even him.
Fuck me, he mouthed, muttered, I didn’t know if it even made sound, but I saw the words on his lips. And I knew the feeling. I felt just as hopeless, looking at him. Gone were the worn jeans and t-shirt he sported everywhere. He had on black jeans and a black button-down shirt that I had to assume were Tobias’s, but sweet angels in heaven couldn’t have painted him into it any better. The sleeves were rolled up on his forearms, the fabric snug over his chest, and my knees nearly forgot how to be knees.
I’d had this man. Yesterday. Inside me and all over me, and instead of that tamping down some of the fire as I’d hoped it would, every nerve ending in my body lit up like a Christmas tree.
He stood straight and watched me as I wound my way around, saying hello to people on my way. He didn’t blink. He didn’t—breathe.
“Hey,” I finally said, when I made it to him, my insides a roaring, buzzing mess.
“Jesus, you look beautiful.”
I felt those words as if he’d written them on my skin. “Why, thank you,” I said. “You look...” I raised my brows to look him over, and a smirk tugged at a corner of his mouth. “Pretty hot, yourself.”
“Did you just objectify me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes playfully.
“I believe I did,” I said, letting myself relax and flirt. Forget the angst of earlier. Give him the benefit of the doubt as he’d asked.
Relief visibly moved across his face and his shoulders relaxed as he studied my eyes. “I’m so damn glad.”
I laughed, and he shook his head, his gaze eating me up. “Just so you know,” he said, “if I have to kill somebody for looking at you wrong tonight, it’ll be worth going back to prison.”
I slapped him in the chest. “Don’t even joke like that.”
His green eyes blazed. “I’m not joking.”
